30 October 2011 12:33 AM

The BBC airbrushes out Palestinian terror attacks -- again

During the past 24 hours, Israel has been under sustained rocket attack from Gaza. Some 35 rockets and mortar shells were fired deep into the country, killing one man in Ashkelon and injuring four other people elsewhere. In Ashdod, vehicles were set on fire and a school --fortunately empty -- was hit. The rocket barrage followed an IDF strike on Gaza which killed five members of Islamic Jihad – and which itself was targeted at the IJ terrorist cell responsible for launching a Grad rocket that exploded in Ashdod last Wednesday.

This, however, is how BBC News has reported the past day’s events on its website:

'Militants killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza

'Five Palestinian militants have been killed in a number of Israeli air strikes on the south of the Gaza Strip. The violence is the most serious since a major prisoner exchange deal earlier this month between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that governs in Gaza.

'The militants were killed at an Islamic Jihad training site in Rafah in the south of the strip. Doctors say at least 10 other people were injured in the strike. The Israeli air force has confirmed it carried out the attack. It said the militants were preparing to launch rockets into Israel.

'An Israeli army spokesman confirmed to the AFP news agency that aircraft had attacked other sites. A statement said the Israeli military had “attacked three terrorist sites in the Gaza Strip as well as an arms factory in the south of the territory”.

'...The violence comes less than two weeks after a major prisoner exchange which saw about 500 Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails in a swap for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Some of those released were Islamic Jihad members.

'A further 500 Palestinian prisoners are due to be freed as part of the deal later this year. BBC Gaza correspondent Jon Donnison says an escalation in violence could jeopardise those releases.'

No mention of the Palestinian rocket attack on Ashdod last Wednesday. No mention of the 35 rocket attacks on Israel during the past day, nor the Israeli killed in Ashkelon. Instead, the BBC has given the false impression on its website that the Israelis initiated the attacks --and the only casualties it reported were Palestinian.

This website report was timed as ‘last updated’ at 1412 on Saturday. But even on the midnight Radio Four news bulletin just now there was still no mention of the rocket attacks on Israel over the past day, nor the murdered Israeli, nor of last Wednesday’s Grad attack – merely a vague and weaselly reference to Israel accusing the Palestinians of ‘carrying out recent rocket attacks’.

This reporting is simply disgraceful and inexcusable. Such selective manipulation of the facts and consequent misrepresentation of cause and effect reverses victim and aggressor in the Middle East, serves the cause of Arab propaganda and foments public hatred of Israel, all with untold consequences around the world.

As has been observed for years, the BBC’s reporting on Israel is out of control. The BBC is clearly incapable of putting its own house in order; its abuse of journalism on this most sensitive of issues is now so egregious that it is surely a matter that should be raised in Parliament.

Update October 30: Finally, belatedly, the BBC reported the attacks on Israel in a website story here at 0410 this morning.

Melanie, Israel is building more settlements on territory the UN defines as occupied land. If a foreign country was illegally building settlements in a corner of the United Kingdom how would you feel? Western(especially American) support for Israel regardless of their actions only inflames the anger towards the west that many feel in the Middle East.
A good example of my point is the offensive into Gaza in 2006.

The BBC is at it again this evening (Sunday). The BBC online headline claims -"New Israeli air strike into Gaza after 'ceasefire'".

However there has been no ceasefire and rockets continue to hit Israeli civilians in Israel. In response Israel is targeting the Islamist Jihad terrorists trying to fire them. You have to see this as a deliberate campaign of distortion by certain people with their own agenda within the BBC.

Now we've gone directly from the BBC Article Melanie linked to above to this one
New Israeli air strike into Gaza after 'ceasefire'
Again with the insinuation that it is Israel which is the aggressor.
Only way down in the article to we get to
'Israel said at 38 rockets and mortars were fired into southern Israel since Saturday, killing one man in the coastal city of Ashkelon. Four other people were wounded by the attacks.'

Then further down we get to 'The spokesman said that the first attack, about midday local time, specifically targeted a cell responsible for a long-range rocket attack on Wednesday that exploded deep inside Israel. That attack had caused no casualties.'

So ultimately we get to the real sequence of events - but in no way do these headlines convey this at all.

I deliberately checked the BBC website last night to see whether there had been mention of the attacks on Asheklon and Ashdod. Not only were they not mentioned or that someone had been fatally wounded, the implication was that it was 'Israel' that had commenced hostilities. I no longer wonder whether it's even worthwhile complaining to the BBC. There is NO balance whatsover. The organisation is rife with anti-Semitism and is utterly hostile to Israel, even to the extent of inculcating their Jewish staff with this ethos.

"its abuse of journalism" - The Western media were for defeating Hitler, and WWII was won; they were against the Vietnam war, and it was duly lost, with the ensuing irreversible weakening of the US. The BBC falsehoods may start with the Jews but they don't and won't end with them. The nowadays essentially Marxist BBC and the joint Franco-British navy can not offer much confidence to the once proud and potent country in the face of looming dangers, be those from the internal and external Islam or from the increasingly economically confident and aggressive China and Russia.

As well as this twisted omission by the BBC that you write about Melanie, are the 2 articles the BBC links along with it on their Mid-East webpage.

Just to make it clear which side of the Palestinian bid for statehood via the UN it supports, it gives us first this opinion piece by Jeremy Bowen
Palestinian statehood bid: Useful points scored at UN
in which he pours as much scorn as possible on Israeli PM Netanyahu trying to oppose it, as well as regretting that Obama has stated that he too will veto this bid. He makes the claim that the only reason Obama is doing this is - Next year's US presidential race may be close and Mr Obama and the Democrats need Israel's many friends in this country to vote for them.

To further advance the Palestinian bid, the other viewpoint linked is
Viewpoint: The end of a new beginning?
in which former US Assistant Secretary of State PJ Crowley tells us 'When US President Barack Obama stepped to the podium in New York last Wednesday, he welcomed a new governing body to the United Nations.
The fact that it was the National Transitional Council from Libya was in its own right remarkable.The fact that it was not the Palestinian Authority was regrettable.
That he was forced to threaten to veto the Palestinian application for membership was a policy failure.'

That's exactly what I've been thinking the whole evening. I haven't heard one reference to these terrible rocket attacks on the main BBC news and on the website every effort is made to imply that Israel is the aggressor in this latest violence. I only found out about the rocket attacks of both today and Wednesday on the Jerusalem Post website. Journalistic standards are fast deteriorating, apart from yours of course!

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